Weekender with Wanda – No Line Watercoloring with Altenew!
Happy Saturday! It’s the middle of August…which means it’s almost time for one of my favorite things – STAMPTEMBER! Yeah! Just a couple more weeks until we roll out the biggest release of the year here at Simon Says Stamp! I love it – and I’m ready for Autumn! The light is changing in the mornings – have you noticed it too? Today I’m sharing the latest edition of Weekender with Wanda, and I have a cool technique to share with you. I truly do hope that you try this because it is so nice to sit and color/paint and the results are so rewarding. I’m talking about No Line Watercoloring! Today’s post features beautiful stamps from one of our favorite member companies – Altenew. I used the gorgeous “Beautiful You” Stamp set for my card.
Doesn’t it look like I painted this? I actually fooled my husband when I showed it to him! Hee hee. I started with a sheet of watercolor paper and taped it to my hardboard to keep it nice and flat. (See photos and supplies below) No Line Watercoloring is simple! I took my Antique Linen Distress Ink pad and randomly stamped the strawberries, leaves and flowers onto the paper. This ink color is so light that you can barely see it. And, that’s the trick. After stamping in light ink, you color over it with watercolor paints! If you look closely you can barely make out the stamped images.
The pretty sentiment is stamped onto vellum paper because I wanted the color to show through it!
Here is what the center panel looked like when I started. Later, I die cut out my card layer by using the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Dies.
I used Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor paints. These are the most beautiful paints! I use mine all the time. The colors are very rich and creamy and they paint like a dream. In this photo you can see that I started with the strawberries and colored them in. I let each color dry before using a new color. This kept the paint colors from running together.
Next I used green watercolor paint and did the leaves and stems.
Here is the whole panel before I cut it out with the Stitched Rectangles Die. One tip for coloring white items – use a soft grey. Strawberry flowers are white with yellow centers and I wanted my project to have those colors too. The grey tricks your eye into seeing this as a white object.
I ended up splattering a bit of brown paint over my finished panel. I always like paint splatters! I wanted a tiny pop of a bright color, so I layered a thin layer of aqua around my center panel before mounting it onto a kraft card base. The finishing touch was a twine bow.
Thank you for spending part of your weekend with me! I hope this technique will inspire you – and hope you try it yourself! See you soon!
Beautifully done, Wanda! You have inspired me to try it if I can find a simple image in my collection to use as I really don’t color! Love the bit of blue & the kraft card base–wouldn’t have thought of that!
Wanda, I just love your tutorial on painting the images. It’s such a pretty card!
This is really beautiful. You’ve inspired me to try no line watercolor again. :)
Absolutely beautiful, I love those sweet strawberries.
I love the strawberries. Such a delicious card.
Love your card and how you mixed the flowers in with the strawberries.
Your card is berry pretty!! I love the look of no line and the tip about using gray on the white.
Such a pretty card!! I love strawberries so this card was sweet:)
Love your card. No line coloring is great!
Beautiful card! Love the technique.
Beautiful card with a great technique!
Beautiful water coloring! Your card is gorgeous!
Great card and technique! :)
Great card and live the results of this no-line watercoloring, Wanda! Now I need a light colored ink to try this myself.
These are the first strawberries I’ve seen on a card in like FOREVER! I love the idea of scattered strawberries/ so pretty.
Gorgeous!!! :o)
Your card and coloring is so pretty!! I have been wanting to try the no line coloring but I haveb’t gotten up the nerve to try it yet. One day hopefully soon I will. LOL!!
This is gorgeous and such a fabulous idea on how to stretch your stamps a little further!
Looks good enough to eat. Thanks for the reminder to tape down the paper.
Very nicely done.
The sentiment is great and the strawberries make for a happy card!
Sweet card!
Beautiful card!
GORGEOUS!!! Beautifully done, Wanda!!
Your card is so very beautiful, Wanda. I love this technique and have been wanting to try it.
So pretty! Thanks for showing how simple the no-line water-coloring can be. Truly does look painted! I’m sure your hubby was suitably impressed! :)
I love the look of no line coloring. Makes you feel like an artiste
Very pretty!
Great instructions for trying this no-line water-colouring technique. Pretty card!
I love the look of the watercolor card, just so pretty! I remember going to pick strawberries as a child with my family in the summer and then sitting with my Mom and cleaning them, just a fun memory and this card reminds me of that. Thanks for the fun memory :)
Very pretty coloring. And great tips.
Beautiful sweet strawberries! YUM!
Such a pretty technique with amazing results!
Your card is so sweet and the blog is a great lesson today, Wanda.
Really sweet card..great idea to put the sentiment on vellum to make it see through.
Such a sweet card! I love strawberries!
The strawberries are wonderfully colored to give them dimension look. Have a Bee-utiful day from Central TX!
Melissa
“Sunshine HoneyBee”
Beautiful card! Your coloring is fabulous! TFS
You could have fooled me into believing you painted it!! Love this Wanda and I am going to give this a try. I have several Altenew stamp sets now, but not this one. I think I can still make it work. Thanks for sharing this technique. Have a great weekend!!
love this technique
Clever technique. Love the card.
This is great! I love everything about this card :)
Beautiful card, your strawberries look fab!
So pretty, wish it was strawberry season here!!!
Love this idea – the results are so very pretty! Will definitely have to try this !
Oh, this is super SWEET! Love!
Your card today is just beautiful because of the beautiful water coloring.
AWESOME card, I love how you can see through the vellum!
Love your card.
I love that peek of blue under the front panel! Beautiful card!